Bataille A Literatura E O Mal (espanhol)

Un-Knowing and Rebellion

Georges Bataille; Annette Michelson

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October, Vol. 36, Georges Bataille: Writings on Laughter, Sacrifice, Nietzsche,
Un-Knowing (Spring, 1986), 86-88.

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SatJul 3 09:49:14 2004

Un-Knowing and Rebellion

I have, in several talks given in this hall, tried to communicate my ex-
perience of un-knowing. Although it is in certain respects a personal one, I
nonetheless consider it to be communicable in that it does not seem a priori to
differ from that of others, except in a kind of defect which is my own: the con-
sciousness that this experience is that of un-knowing.

It is, of course, obvious that whenever I speak of un-knowing, I must in-
cur the same difficulty, and must each time, therefore, invoke it. But I do,
nevertheless, proceed, promptly acknowledging it, for what I shall now develop
before you will be, as on other occasions, that paradox, the knowledge of un-
knowing, a knowledge of the absence of knowledge.

I intend, as indicated by the title of my talk, to speak of rebellion. I con-
sider that we are enslaved by knowledge, that there is a servility fundamental
to ali knowledge, an acceptance of a mode of life such that each moment has
meaning only in terms of another, or of others to follow. For clarity's sake, I
shall present things thus. Naturally I shall fail, as I have done heretofore. But I
should like, first of ali, to state the measure of my failure. I can, in fact, say that
had I succeeded, the contact between us would have perceptibly been of the
sort that exists not in work, but in play. I should have made you understand
something that is decisive for me: that my thought has but one object, play, in
which my thinking, the working of my thought, dissolves.

Those who have followed my thinking as set forth have realized that it
was, in a way that is fundamental, in perpetuai rebellion against itself. I shall
try today to offer an example of this rebellion on a point which is of prime im-
portance relative to those philosophical considerations which form my point of
departure.

I shall, in brief, start with the utterance of a general philosophy which I
can offer as my own. I must begin with this statement. It's a very crude
philosophy, one which must really seem far too simple, as though a philosopher
capable of stating commonplaces of this sort bears no relation to the subtle sort
of character now known as a philosopher. For this sort of idea might really be
anyone's. I do mean that this thought which appears common to me is my

thought. I recall meeting, a long time ago, a young medicai intern who held a
philosophy of this sort. He never stopped repeating, with an extraordinarily
cool self-assurance, one explanatory idea; everything, in his view, carne down
to the instinct of self-preservation. That was thirty years ago. One is less likely
to hear this refrain today. My conception is surely less out of date, and may,
despite ali, correspond more closely, or somewhat less badly, to the idea of
philosophy. It consists in saying that ali is play, that being is play, that the idea
of God is unwelcome and, furthermore, intolerable, in that God, being situated
outside time, can be only play, but is harnessed by human thought to creation
and to ali the implications of creation, which go contrary to play (to the game).

We find, moreover, in this respect, a blunting of that most ancient
register of human thought which remains largely within the idea of play in its
consideration of the totality of things. This blunting is, however, by no means
peculiar to Christian thought. Plato still considered the sacred action, that very
action which religion offers man as a possibility of sharing in the essence of
things, as a game. Nevertheless, Christianity, Christian thinking remains the
screen separating us from what I shall call the beatific vision of the game.

It seems to me to be our characteristically Christian conception of the
world and of man in the world which resists, from the very outset, this thought
that ali is play.

The possibility of a philosophy of play — this presupposes Christianity.
But Christianity is only the spokesman of pain and death. From this point of
departure, and given the conditions of space and duration within which being
exists, one could see a series of problems arising. To these I shall give no fur-
ther consideration. Another question arises; if one sets play against the expe-
diency of action, the game in question can be termed a lesser one. The prob-
lem: if this is a lesser game, it cannot be made the end of serious action. We
cannot, on the other hand, attribute to useful action any end other than that of
the game. There is something amiss here.

Let us say that we can take some edge off the game. It is then no longer a
game.

The philosophy of play appears, in a manner that is fundamental, to be
truth itself, common and indisputable; it is, nevertheless, out of kilter in that
we suffer and we die.

The other solution: we can think and be the game, make of the world and
of ourselves a game on condition that we look suffering and death in the face.
The greater game — more difficult than we think— the dialectic of the master
who confronts death. Now, according to Hegel, the master is in error, it is the
slave who vanquishes him, but the slave is nonetheless vanquished, and once
he has vanquished the master, he is made to conquer himself. He must act not
as master, but as rebel. The rebel first wants to eliminate the master, expel him
from the world, while he, at the same time, acts as master, since he braves
death. The rebePs situation is thus highly equivocai.

88

OCTOBER

Rebellion's essential problem lies in extricating man from the obligation
of the slave.

For the master, the game was neither greater nor lesser. The rebel, how-
ever, revolting against the game which is neither lesser nor greater, who must
reduce the game to the state of a lesser one, must see the necessity of the greater
one, which is essentially rebellion against the lesser, the game's limit. Other-
wise, it is the lesser man who prevails over reason.

The rebel is thus constrained, because he has had to accept death. He
must go to the limit of his revolt; he has certainly not rebelled in order to com-
plete his submission. From this follows the awareness that the worst is a game,
a negation of the power of suffering and death — cowardice in the face of this
sort of prospect.

I think, though, that this time I have found my way out of the first propo-
sition of a philosophy of play by passing to the game itself [crossed out: and no
one will be surprised if] Fve set a trap.

It thus appears that we extricate ourselves from the philosophy of play,
that we reach the point at which knowledge gives way, and that un-knowing
then appears as the greater game — the indefinable, that which thought cannot
conceive. This is a thought which exists only timidly within me, one which I do
not feel apt to sustain. I do think this way, it is true, but in the manner of a
coward, like someone who is inwardly raving mad with terror. Still, what can
so cowardly a reaction. . . .*

November 24, 1952

Text breaks off in this manner. — trans.